From the Head of Knox Sports Academy

Mr Chuck Ardron

The weather last week-end unfortunately played a part in who got to compete and who did not. Early in the morning the forecast was for storms and rain and therefore decisions were made however, it stopped raining early and this allowed afternoon sport to be played.

Once again there were some good results across those sports that were able to play and I commend students on their attitude, attendance and attire and, with one full round to go, I know this will continue.

I would like to commend the 1st XI Cricket team who made the call to declare and provided both teams with an opportunity to win the game. Knox were unable to get Aloysius all out for a second time but the brave declaration ensured that all those boys at both Knox and Aloysius enjoyed the contest with Knox winning on 1st innings The boys showed the spirit of having a go and taking a risk and I encourage all students and teams to follow this attitude.

On Monday the 2015/16 1st XI Cricket team competed in the NSW Schools Championship against St Gregorys Campbelltown and lost the game by one run, I congratulate all those involved on a job well done

This week sees Knox play out the last full round against Waverley and Trinity in the 1sts, 2nds, 10A and 9A Cricket. I look forward to good weather and moving around all sports and finding Knox students enjoying their chosen sport.

For all other sports, training has ceased except for Period 7 for Year 10, 9, 8 and 7.

Period 7 sport will continue in Week 7, 8 and 9 with dismissal at 3.15pm.

Basketball

Ms Ellie Manou, MIC Basketball

The fourth round of the CAS season saw Knox play Trinity. Trinity are reigning premiers of the competition and always give Knox Grammar School a tough match up. Knox finished the round with 26 win and 6 loss record.

The Open’s finished the round with a 6 win and 4 loss record. The 1st’s were unable to match Trinity’s intensity losing 55-70. Our boys need to work hard at practice this week on finishing and ball security in order to defeat a tough Waverley unit this Saturday. The 2nd’s played a tightly contested game but unfortunately went down 44-48. The boys will work hard on their free throw shooting this week. The 3rd’s played their best game to date winning 46-30. Also special mention to the 10th’s who won 47-8 in an impressive offensive display. The remainder of the games include: 4ths (L - 29-36), 5ths (W – 39-29), 6ths (W 32-27), 7ths (L- 24-32), 8ths (W – 22-13), 9ths (W – 22-21), 10ths (W – 47-8), 11ths (L -15-29), 12ths (W – 23-7), 13ths (L – 21 -32), 14ths (L – 21-32) and 15ths (W – 27-5).

The 10’s had their most successful round to date finishing with 5 wins and 1 loss. All boys in year 10 have been working tremendously hard with their coaches at practice and are commended for their improvement and work ethic. The 10A’s played their most cohesive team game to date winning 45-25. The boys will work on their defensive containment and communication this week to ensure that they keep improving. The B’s won in a close game 29-24. The C’s earned their first victory of the season 38-31. The D’s lost 19-39 and will work hard this week on finishing under the basket and defensive principles. The E’s won 41-32 and the F’s won 31-25. Well done to all boys in Year 10!

The 9’s continue their fine form finishing the round undefeated with 6 wins. The A’s played another great team game with superb shooting from Mikey Yoong, Josh Pain and Harry Rowles who was also dominant under the basket grabbing boards. The boys wore white arm bands to support White Ribbon Day (pictured). The B’s continue their fine form, winning 59-26. Buster Scarr and Adam Thoma had great games for the B’s. The C’s won 28-25, D’s won 35-6, E’s won 32-28 and the F’s won 64-8. Our J’s played against St Pat’s in a closely contested match but went down 28-31. Another fantastic round by our 9’s!

The 8’s also continue to impressive finishing the round with 9 wins and 1 loss. The A’s played their toughest match up to date against an impressive Trinity team. Our boys need to work hard at practice and believe in themselves and their teammates in order to compete against this Trinity team to the best of their ability. The final score was 11-40. The remainder of the CAS games were wins with the B’s winning 38-20, C’s 28-27, D’s 25-24, E’s 36-20, F’s 51-8, G’s 34-15, H’s 2-14, I’s 26-23 and J’s 46-6. Our K’s and L’s versed Shore G and H and lost 25-40 in the K’s and won 23-6 in the L’s. Great work by our Year 8 teams this week!

This will be our final Saturday of basketball for the term with Opens and 8’s away and 10’s and 9’s at home against Waverley. Good luck to all boys competing in CAS games and extra fixtures on Saturday. For the remainder of term there will only be period 7 skills training for all teams.

Cricket

1st XIA scorching hot day met the players at Aloys, resuming at 5/69 Aloys fought hard and managed to just avoid the follow-on with some resolute defence from their tail end batsmen.

4 bowlers from Knox took 2 wickets each but Todd Anderson was the stand out taking 2-17 off 18 overs including 9 maidens, his accuracy and seam movement at times made him unplayable and on another day could easily have taken a large bag of wickets! Having crawled past the follow-on mark 9 wickets down, Aloys declared. Knox went out swinging and scored 2/74 off 8 overs with some superb strokes belying this seasons performances in the T20 competition, Coburn (31 off 24) Wines ( 25 off 19) led the way allowing a very fair declaration off 172 off 43 overs to set up an exciting finish. At 2/49 Aloys looked in control but quick wickets to Anderson again (2-10 off 8) and Tom Ivers (3-21) set them back in the chase. To their credit Aloys never gave up and this meant for the second time in the day Knox were searching for the elusive 10th wicket. A nail-biting last 2 overs proved fruitless but a great bounce back from the Barker match and the players gave it their all on a very physically demanding day. Trinity this week will be the toughest match of the year but a great challenge and the last 2 matches of the 2 day round are an opportunity to take points off the sides above us!

2ND XI
After a very successful start with the ball defending a low total in week one the 2nds performed outstanding well to notch their first win of the season.

After taking 7 wickets the first day our aim was to dismiss St Aloysius before they reach the follow on (77 runs). Thanks to some amazing performance from Stephan Du Plooy (4/15) and Max Hodge (3/13) they were dismissed for 66 runs. Tom Moscou enforced the follow on and we got to work taking our first wicket in just the 3rd over.

Throughout the second innings most of our bowlers contributed a moment of brilliance with Felix Walsh, Cam Hewitt and Hamish Cole all taking 2 wickets and Tom Moscou and Max Hodge taking 1 each. All the boys stuck to their plans and were led superbly in the field by Tom Moscou.

Unfortunately, St Aloysius passed our total and we were unable to take the last 2 wickets. This; however, was our first win of the year and a very convincing one at that.

Knox won the toss and decided to bat first which seemed to work in their favor. The openers, Lee and Hennessy getting Knox off to a good start with a 57 run partnership before Lee was dismissed for 21. Hennessy was dismissed shortly after lee for 17. The most impressive partnership of the day was 110 runs between Young and Zatz who both batted superbly. Young finished his innings with 37 while Zatz made an extraordinary total of 72. Rahul Bhatnagar then came in and made a quick 19 in the final overs. The impressive innings came to a close with Knox scoring 232 runs off 30 overs.

Knox knew that bowling on a synthetic pitch wasn't going to be easy and that they were going to have to bowl full and straight to attack the stumps in order to get wickets and reduce the runs. They did just that with both openers giving Knox momentum early. Stutchbury with the best figures of the day with 3-15 off his 4 overs whilst, for the third week in a row, Loong finished with figures of 2-23. Knox's bowling efforts was phenomenal with each bowler taking a wicket and second change bowler Ned Young taking 2-4 off his 3.5 overs. This bowling effort was matched by great enthusiasm in the field which ultimately helped Knox get the win bowling Trinity out for 109 in the 22nd over.

9B
On a very hot afternoon, Knox were sent into the field by Trinity. Knox had the intention with taking early wickets and overcoming the hot conditions. Knox began the way the wanted to start by taking a number of early wickets without conceding many runs on the small ground. A great direct hit by Hamish Quigley dismissed one of Trinity's opening batsmen in the second over. The Knox bowlers bowled full and straight all innings and did not allow Trinity to score runs at a quick rate. After the 18th over, Knox had bowled Trinity out for 71.

Knox's opening batsmen began their innings with the intent of playing the ball on its merits. The Trinity bowlers failed to bowl consistently and Knox's opening batsmen capitalised by hitting the bad balls to the boundary. A well managed opening stand of 51 by Henry Roberts and Adi Srivatsan set the foundation for Knox's run chase and although they were both dismissed Knox reach the total after 14 overs at 3 down.

9D
The 9D’s came out to bowl against Joey’s on a turf wicket in scorching hot conditions. The opening bowler, Hamish O’Reilly started off well managing to bowl the opening batter, he ended with 1/23 off 4 overs. Henry Hill (1/31) and Will Lovell (1/21) also pitched in. Nimay also had a very economical day with 0/8 off 3 overs. Although after this the Joey’s batting and the 34 degree heat proved too much for Knox letting Joey finish on 3/227 runs at the end of the 32 overs.

The Knox openers came out with belief that they could track down this score. Unfortunately, this did not go to plan. Wicket after wicket fell and the 9D’s didn’t think that they were going to last the overs. Then Henry Hill and Xavier Singarayar came out before drinks and gave Knox a fighting chance with 19 for Henry and 22 not out from Xavier. This allowed Knox to last the overs but they still fell short of the run chase finishing on 8/93.

8A
We travelled to Trinity and were sent in to field in a hot sunny afternoon. Campbell Wilson struck in the 2nd over and Marlon Dosanjh in the 3rd. A perfect start. However, this brought in Trinity’s two best batsmen. We knocked them over quickly and fortunately. From then Trinity never got going. An amazing catch by Will Feather sparked a collapse. Mirando, Osborn and Dosanjh and Wilson all shared a wicket and Lachie Voukelatos bagged two late in the innings.

Chasing 113 for a win, we stressed the importance of a low total isn’t always easy to get. We implemented a “David Warner bang” with Will Shortis opening the batting. This paid off when he was eventually out for 43 when we only needed about 20 runs to win. A massive step up. Our usual opener Andrew Jenkins came in at 3 and supported Tom Osborn (49*). Unfortunately he was out to a great leg spin ball. Mirando notched up a boundary to win the game and keep Tom Osborn on 49. An awesome day by the boys, who would have felt like underdogs going into this. Very impressed and let’s take this dominating force into our game against Waverley and try go 5 wins out of 5.

8B
Knox lost the toss and Trinity chose to bowl first. Carlton Hogan and Jack Wormald got the innings off to solid start which was backed up by a terrific 80 run partnership between Young and Copeland. Clydesdale, Craig, and Caspari also made valuable contributions to get Knox to a total of 156 runs.
With the ball, Knox was equally effective. Taylor and Erdstein made it difficult for the batsmen to score from the very beginning. Hamilton and Craig also ensured that the opposition were given no respite and Trinity went into drinks at 4/34. Finnegan and Clydesdale were also stand out bowlers with figures of 1/12 and 1/1 respectively. In the end, Trinity fell short by 58 runs. Another convincing win from the mighty 8B's.

8C
Winning the toss and electing to bat first was captain Max Pike’s greatest service to his team in the 35-degree heat. It soon became clear that Trinity’s bowling attack was no match for the strong Knox batting. The opening partnership of 39 by Coughlan (20 not out) and Gray (14 not out) paved the way for Stocks (23 not out), Rich (26 not out), Kirk (31 not out) and Pike (21) to play with authority as the innings finished at 2/200 off 20 overs! Trinity’s batsmen showed signs of heat stress after retrieving the ball from all sections of the park during Knox’s innings. The dependable opening attack of Bouwer (1/1) and Shannon (4/0) sent five Trinity batsmen back to the sheds for a paltry 1 run by the end of the 5th over.

Kirk’s encouragement from fine leg, “Don’t worry boys, they’re still 198 runs from the total” proved the catalyst for Jones (1/1), Stevensen (2/0) and Pike (1/2) to finish the innings off by the 9th over. Trinity was all out for 7 runs! Some great catching by Coughlan and Shannon, and a direct hit by Stocks, again proved that this 8C’s team has got all the skills required to play excellent cricket.

Sailing

Mr John Parker, MIC Sailing

I hope those who attended the Scots Regatta last Saturday enjoyed themselves. It was a great day with such a variety of weather conditions thrown at us. Early in the morning, with rain pelting down along with thunder and lightning, it looked as if the regatta would be postponed.

But luck was with us, and the weather turned around for a cracker of a day on the water. It was so efficient having 36 Pacers all on the water at once meaning no lost time with changeovers. It did mean for a long tiring day for the sailors with boats leaving shore around 10.45am and not returning till 3.00pm resulting in a ravenous horde descending on the WSC kiosk, once back on dry land, but a small price to pay for such an amazing experience.

Squash

Mr Eric van Arkkels, MIC Squash

Knox 1st won 2-1 over Briars with N You Lee and R Rattan winning by forfeit. F Hellen-Ford started slowly but settled and was back in the match leading in the fourth game when the ball burst. This unfortunately broke Finns momentum and his opponent went on to win the match, as for Finn this was another part of sport that we all have to deal with and the positive aspect is that he tried and never gave up and continues to improve every week. The best of attitudes!

K2 and K3 had Training sessions.

K4 won 3-0 over Barker 3 with K Ramcharan and E Bakker winning by forfeit. This left J Price to play and James set the tempo early with some well-placed drives and cross court shots.

K5 won 2-1 over Northmead 1 led by L Tilley who set the pace early with some well-placed back of court shots along with some clinical drops was too strong for his opponent on the day. L Marinaki also started well with some well-placed shots and back hand drives forcing his opponent to chase every ball who unfortunately had to retire injured. A Jenkins, who had moved up from team 9 as a late replacement found the pace unsettling but to Andrews credit he never stopped chasing every ball but sadly just not enough on the day.

K7 won 2-1 over Briars. B Fraser played to his strengths with some well-placed forehand and back of court drives giving Brendan a comfortable win. F Prince set the tempo early with some quality front of court boasts and varying cross court drives enabling Finn to dominate from start to finish. P Mehta started slowly and came back to level the game with some well-placed back of court shots Pranav was playing well but lost focus and was then unable to settle. From this the students learn and come back stronger.

K9 won 3-0 over Barker 6. C Beauchamp led with a strong performance playing some well-placed forehand and backhand drives with Cameron varying his plays. J Henery worked hard
chasing every ball eventually overpowering his opponent with some well-placed back of court shots. L Hincks playing up from team 11 played a very positive game working the court well Lachy
stayed focused with some powerful serves and fore hand drives.

K11 lost 1-2 to Barker 8. E Denton set the pace with some quality front of court boasts and forehand drives Ewan played a very positive game, he then played a second match
and continued playing to his strengths only to run out of steam at the very end. However, a great effort. I Lu found the transmission from tennis to squash challenging but credit to Ivan he never
stops trying and continues to work hard at training and is improving every week.

K13 won 3-0 over Barker 12. S Suresh player of the day! Shiv not only played two five setters and won but had the mental strength to stay focused and win both his last games by 2 points this was
very exciting to watch and kept the crowd entertained. A Nipatcharoen played a year 12 opponent twice his size - Akito worked hard playing some well-placed forehand and cross court shots going on to win3-0.

K15 won 3-0 over Barker 16 O Weeding set the pace early dominating from start to finish with some well-placed serves and drives Oliver is settling in well as the leader of his team. A Pan-Cassin also played two matches playing to his strengths Anton was too strong for his opponents playing some well-placed back of court shots and forehand drives.

Tennis

Mr Ben Higgins, MIC Tennis

Saturday 12 November 2016 saw Knox take on Trinity. Unfortunately a lot of our matches got washed out due to the early morning rain.

The 5th and 6th Open Teams both managed to get on and play against Trinity. The 5th team did well to win 4-2 overall with some outstanding play from Erwin Xu in both singles and doubles. The 6th team had a close match and lost 2-4 but only by 5 games to split the two teams.

The Year 9 E-H and the Year 8 G-J all managed to play their internal matches. The boys all worked hard and continued to improve on their match play with special mention to David Huang and Joshua Tseung on a great performance in their internal matches.

Overall it was a quite weekend of tennis, but the boys are eager to play next week against Waverley.

Track and Field

Mr Andrew Ferris, Track and Field Director

Treloar Shield #3After a few weeks of training the Knox Track & Field team was back in action at SOPAC.

The consistent hard work at training was evident for the sprinters with many athletes recording personal bests despite the less than ideal conditions. Charles Barclay had two great runs in the hurdles and 200m. Ben MacNamara was also on fire in the hurdles, narrowly missing the national qualifying time. Ben also performed extremely well in the High Jump. The 200m was an impressive sight with 10 boys lining up across multiple heats. Lewis Clabburn led the way winning his heat with Josh Batten and Harrison Muller not far behind. Rhys Williams, Michael Hitchcock and Jonah Marsden also had great runs.

Battling the winds, the 800m runners performed quite well. Zach Wyatt continues to trend upwards, crossing the line first in his 800m heat. James and Will Constable battled older competition and Matthew Gamble made a fantastic debut. In the 3000m Mitch Westhuizen, Tom Gordon, Max Evans and Jackson Croker had fantastic runs with all of them either just missing or setting new personal bests.

High Jumpers Harley Clifton and Sam Nicholl welcomed themselves back to the competition arena in style. Sam jumped a huge PB and Harley narrowly missed equalling his PB set at CAS.

Competition continues this week, although the team will split up with an All Comers meet at Blacktown Friday evening and Treloar Shield at E.S. Marks on Saturday.

Volleyball

Ms Alexandra Charles, MIC Volleyball

This week the Volleyballers travelled to Trinity and fought a good battle against last year’s Premiers.

The 1sts put up a good fight, challenging Trinity by chasing down balls and keeping up a solid defence. However, the Trinity 1sts were too strong and their incredible attack proved too much. Although it was a convincing win for Trinity, Knox challenged their play and the experience will prove to have been excellent practice when students come up against Scots in the next round.

The 2nds faced a similar challenge as the depth of players throughout the Trinity squad was excellent. They fought a hard battle to almost win in the 1sts set, but unfortunately they were beaten by two points. Trinity took the game with a two set win, but the students demonstrated their quickly progressing attack throughout the match.

Finally, the 3rds played a very tight game, demonstrating their developing skills by forcing Trinity to work hard for the win. They kept a tight margin between themselves and Trinity by not giving up on the ball and chasing down points that would have been previously lost. Overall, this week was the end of our winning streak for the season but, after facing what is the strongest opponent, students are keen for the next few weeks of competition.

NSW Volleyball Schools Cup- 13 November 2016After a challenging day on Saturday, a small team of players represented Knox in the NSW Volleyball Schools cup at Olympic Park. A team of eight competed in the Open Boys Division 2 and it ended up being a wonderful experience for the mix of 1sts and 2nds who went along. Jason Choong, Charlie Lorimer, Angus Lorimer, Jacob Yang, Craig Xu, Campbell Hayes, Euro Ruangvanish and Daniel Shen all worked incredibly hard on the day and they were able to earn Knox the Bronze after five hard fought games.

The day started with an early win against Carlingford High School’s 2nds team. Students were able to dominate after a shaky start, coming together as a team and sorting out the strongest rotations. The game was a close one, with Carlingford taking the first set, but Knox coming from behind to win the remaining two. Then a face off against Baulkham Hills High School. This team posed a new challenge as their players were strong and had played together for years, representing their school. Knox learned a valuable lesson about working as a team and supporting each other as Baulkham Hills picked on our weak spots and took a 2: 0 win.

At the conclusion of the round games Knox were in 2nd position and played Quakers Hill, 3rd in their pool. The unconventional playing style was a challenge at first, but Knox were able to come away with a win, giving the chance to play in the semi-finals. Next Baulkham Hills High School’s 2nd team in the semis who had toped their own pool and were undefeated so far. Students found the strength of their serves challenging, as well as the power of one of their more experienced hitters. In the end, the team went down in a 2:0 loss again but students were excited to play for a chance at the Bronze.

The 4th and 5th play off was between Carlingford High School’s 1st team and Knox. Not only playing for the opportunity to medal, but also the chance to go home without doing another duty. The students worked incredibly hard against a challenging opponent, fought through their extreme tiredness from a full day of volleyball and managed to snag the first set 25:19. Although students could almost taste the victory, Knox found themselves down in the second set when the timer went off and ended the game. Luckily enough when the scores were tallied, Knox had won the Bronze by just one point. As our first team to compete in a Schools Cup in many years the students were glad finish up with a win and proud of their efforts playing against some really challenging opponents on the day.

It was an excellent experience for all and we look forward to competing in many more next year.

Water Polo

1st grade scored their first win of the season today with a very good team effort where goals were shared between 7 players.
Extra man attack and counter attacks need more work but there was no doubting the 100% effort from all players. Nic Trobec was dominant at centre forward and took on added responsibility due to the absence of Ben Yates (injured).
Amrit William had another impressive game in goals and Rhys Taylor showed his improvement with two well taken goals and some solid defence.

In a close tussle, 2nd grade once again came out on top due to strong performances from Xavier Wall, Ted Harrison and Will Harte. Jason Park stood tall in goals and even scored a length of the field goal, which proved to be the difference.

This was a very entertaining game where Knox took the lead but allowed SIC to stage a comeback to draw level with only seconds remaining. Knox scored a controversial buzzer beater in the fourth quarter to win the match by a goal.
Strong performances by Alvin Fu, Bodhi Phillips and Angus Hindmarsh.

Wilson Gu was mentioned as having an outstanding game, and was ably assisted by top goal scorer Elliott Heys and Will Bondy.
It was also good to see that 5 different players got their names on the score sheet.

Tyler Krenkels added another 4 goals to his impressive season tally today when he led from the front to help his team win a tough game against quality opponents. Lach Reeve contributed two goals and swapped positions to goalkeeper in the last quarter replacing Tobey Rowe who had an outstanding game as keeper. Sam Bennett and Lachlan Robertson scored impressive goals and both were instrumental in this win.

This close game was decided by the persistence and good shooting of Will Dixon and James Sung and desperate defending from Regan Frater and Paul Lee (both of whom added to the score sheet.)

Prep School Blue
Won 11-3 @ Knox
Goal scorers: D.Farris 4, W. Parker 3, N.Walker 2, E. Ericsson 1, J. Horbach 1.
Wyl Parker and Declan Farris showed their superior shooting skills today and were assisted by great goals from Nic Walker, Jacque Horbach and Edward Ericsson in this emphatic win. This was the biggest win of the day from all teams and this teams remains undefeated.

An impressive defensive effort and decisive shooting proved the difference in this tight game. Fitness and speed was evident across the pool and demonstrates how swimming squad training really assists in becoming a very good water polo player.

Hopefully, many of this team are destined for representative honours and the team work displayed is wonderful.

Congratulations to all teams. A 100% winning effort amongst tough opposition. Keep up the good work.

Player of the day Tyler Krenkels from U14A and Elliot Heys from the U15's.

No Dogs Allowed Policy

To improve safety of the students and visitors to the school, we have a No Dogs Allowed policy. Dogs are prohibited, leashed or unleashed, on school grounds, unless they are assistance dogs, security patrol dogs or police dogs.

Dogs may not be brought onto any Knox Grammar School property, including the Prep and Senior School campuses and all playing fields, including Curagul and Gillespie Fields.

Signage has been installed and our Security Team has been asked to let parents and carers know that we are a dog-free school. If you bring a dog onto school property, you may be approached by the School's Security Team and asked to leave.

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding on this safety initiative.

Mouthguards

It is school policy that we recommend all students wear mouthguards for training and games for AFL, Football and Rugby.

Coaches have been asked to check that students have them as training will be modified if they do not have them.